Tuesday, August 4, 2015

With the exception of Las Vegas, hotels usually don’t make an effort to attract diners that aren’t already guests of the hotel. There are only a handful of hotel restaurants that I can think of that I dined at without being a guest.
The Breeze Restaurant in the Hyatt Regency Century City Plaza Hotel is attempting to change that perception. The Breeze kitchen has experimented with a few different themes and I had a chance to sample their new pop-up restaurant located just off the lobby.

I learned that the Hyatt Regency team will rotate the kitchen in six month pop-up efforts, each one operating under a different name. I had the opportunity to attend the initial pop-up named “Viento”, a Latin small plates concept.
During the dinner hours, Viento serves tapas such as pork belly sliders and mini duck sopes, alongside larger dishes like mole platters and Achiote Salmon. They also change the restaurant’s interior design by swapping out tables, chairs, and decor elements as needed.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop has been a popular destination for salad and other healthy breakfast and lunch options, with more locations slowly popping up. Recently, they've also started offering juices to meet their customers' demands. Their executive chef, Kristi Ritchey, explains that there are two types of juicers The centrifugal juicers are high speed and create heat. This type of juicer separates juice from the pulp. On the other hand, Greenleaf uses a slow speed juicer which extracts more fiber from the ingredients. I came in to taste the juices on my own.

Red grape juice

Greenleaf sells pure juices including carrot and tomato ($5.95), orange, grapefruit, green apple, and red grape pure juices ($6.95). If those prices seem high, keep in mind that these are all 20oz servings and use higher priced ingredients. Even though red apple is cheaper, Kristi decides to use Granny Smith apple for the juice because it gives a crisper flavor. They also use red grapes instead of the cheaper green grapes because the green ones have a metallic aftertaste.

You can also build your own juice for $6.95, for which you can select three main ingredients like kale, apple, pineapple, cucumber, etc and add one accent like ginger, celery, jalapeno, mint, or parsley. All the juices can be sold in a sealed bottle to take home (they do suggest consuming anything with ginger within a day, though).
If you're baffled by the choices, just go with one of their signature juices.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

When you want something healthy but still tastes good while shopping at the Westfield Century City, head over to the newly opened Seasons 52. Everything on the menu is under 500 calories and they use no butter and no fryer. They also have one hundred wines on their list, 62 of them available by the glass.

I was recently invited to a preview tasting in one of their private dining rooms.

Our visit started on the patio with a glass of Chartogne-Taillet Cuvee Sainte Anne, a small grower champagne, and a lemon verbena mojito.

So the verbena used in the mojito, along with a bunch of other herbs used in different dishes come from plants grown on site. There are some herbs on the side of the patios and there is a small "Chef's Garden" room near the entrance, and you can peer in through the glass door as the chefs harvest the herbs throughout the day.

There's a large patio area and it was surprisingly quiet for being next to Santa Monica Blvd.

We started with a crispy Chipotle shrimp flatbread with roasted poblano, grilled pineapple and feta cheese

Then we went into the dining room for our tasting. For an amuse bouche, we had dungeness crab and Haas avocado, pico de gallo, finger lime. This was paired with Aveleda Vinho Verde, Portugal 2011

I think this was my first time having finger lime, which was very tart, but all the components worked well together. The vinho verde is made with half a dozen native Portuguese varieties and is crisp and clean.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

After multi-course tastings all week, a dinner composed of salads is most definitely a nice change. That's why I happily accepted an invitation for dinner at Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop in Century City. This location usually closes at 4pm and only open on the weekdays, so on a normal day, I would not be able to try it.

Antioxidant Orchard Salad

The ones responsible for Greenleaf are owner Jonathan Rollo and Corporate Chef Kristi Ritchey, who met when they were both working for the Patina Group. Chef Kristi's reason for joining Greenleaf is an interesting history. After being hospitalized during her tenure at Patina group, Kristi made a drastic change in eating habits and participated in bootcamps. She lost over 100 lbs but she started having difficulty maintaining her new lifestyle while making risotto fries and cheesecakes at work.

Even though the Beverly Hills location has had alcohol license for a while, the Century City location finally obtained theirs only recently. To celebrate, and also to celebrate the National Salad Month, during the month of May customers can get a free taste of paired wine with their salad purchase (w/ min $10 salad purchase). Want to know what they're pairing with what? Keep reading.

Before starting with the salads, we had the Wild Mushroom and Truffle "Pizza" ($9.95)

The "pizza" is made using whole wheat tortilla made especially for Greenleaf. They worked with a tortilla maker to get a low calorie whole wheat tortilla that tastes good. The tortilla has 110 calories and the whole pizza is about 400 calories.

Afterwards, we had a sampling of their signature salads. At Greenleaf, you can build your own salads, which starts at $7.95, or you can order one of their signature salads. The signature salads are $10 each. It may at first seem expensive but the portions are big, and filled with meat and various ingredients. Compared to this, I paid $5 for a bit of grilled vegetables at my school's salad bar.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

How much love does Los Angeles have for mozzarella?
First there was Mozzarella Mondays at Jar. Then there was mozzarella tastings and bar at Osteria Mozza. Now welcome Obikà, a mozzarella-centric new restaurant in the Westfield Century City mall.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Afternoon tea is a luxury, not just in paying for it but also taking the time in the middle of the day and is pretty much an extra meal between lunch and dinner. But if you can afford that luxury of time, it's certainly a great way to spend your afternoon with friends, relax, and pamper yourself.

In England everyone might take afternoon tea all the time, but here it is more the home of many a bridal shower and girls getting together exchanging Christmas presents. For these events, then, atmosphere, ambiance, and appearance are all the more important. Afternoon tea at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City provides just that.Set either in a lovely and quiet side room facing the courtyard, or weather permitting, on the courtyard itself.The china that they're using for the afternoon tea has been used at the hotel since its first inception.There are two ways to enjoy your afternoon tea here at Park Grill. You can either order the afternoon tea set for $21.50, or order individual items a la carte to create your own tea set.

For the set, your choice of tea includes some with fancy names that unfortunately gave me little clue as to what they are: Lady Grey, Prince of Wales, Decaf Earl Grey, Organic Dragon Lily Flowering Tea.If you were to order a la carte, the regular loose leaf teas are $6, while the "flowering teas" are $8. For this media event, we got our choice of any of their teas, all lined up on a white linen covered cart. I got one of the "flowering teas", the Jasmine Lover, which is served in a clear glass pot so you can see it bloom.Bloomed into quite a pretty orange flower, didn't it? It tasted pretty good too.

Petite Tea Sandwiches:Other savories are priced at $2-2.50 individually and include:Grilled Vegetable WrapSmoked Salmon with Dill Cream on Pumpernickel, Curried Egg Salad on Wheat, Crab Salad on a Savory Herb SconeMini quiches, served warm.Scone/bread ($2 each if you order a la carte) selections include:Scones with Clotted Cream and Preserves, Lemon Cake, Zucchini Bread.The scones are fine though I liked the buttery scones at Gordon Ramsay better. My British friend told me scones are supposed to be kinda bland though. That's what the clotted cream and the preserves are for!

The sweets don't stop there. You also get a choice of Crepe Suzette, Mango Jubilee, Banana Foster ($7 each a la carte)

For the tasting we actually got to try both the crepe suzette and banana foster, both of which are prepared tableside.Both are topped with some chocolate chips, which everyone seemed to like. I thought it was too sweet for the crepe though it did work well with the bananas.Petit fours to end. There was only a piece of each to share with everyone, so I only tried the macaron, which was good.Oh, one more thing. We got a tour of the hotel at the end and they apparently have a helipad! Due to some ... circumstance that I can no longer remember, I ended up watching bits of an episode of this season's The Bachelorette, where she and the date cross over to another building on a high wire from ...Looks familiar?

If you're organizing something for your girlfriends, this is the place to get some "ooh"s and "aah"s from the blooming tea to the tableside crepe suzette/ banana foster. Everyone likes a show.Park Grill at The InterContinental Hotel2151 Ave Of The StarsLos Angeles, CA 90067(310) 284-6530

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Every week Clementine will feature 5 different grilled cheeses, including one by another great LA chef each week. 5 different ones every week?? Well, when should I go then? Go every week! Or if you can't make that, here's the entire menu schedule. Pick and choose wisely.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Clementine is a small neighbourhood place on Ensley, just off of Santa Monica (more or less right across from the Century City mall). They typically feature ingredients from local farmer's market.

Clementine's is simple lunch fare: salads, sandwiches, and soups. Their cold deli case usually features a wide variety of specialty salads and more. This time around we got some edamame with king salmon, caprese, and chicken soba noodles. A plate of 3 items like this is $11.95.All were fresh - refreshing and quite delicious, even the soba noodles that I was originally skeptical of (I'm skeptical of Soba from a non-Japanese place).

They also have made-to-order salads. Can't remember what I ordered that time (that day's special), but it had shrimps and white beansThe ingredients used were all great, although I'm still not sure about the combination with the beans.

My favorite part of Clementine's is actually all the soups, which you can buy frozen by the pints! You can also eat it there, or get a sandwich/soup combination.Their egg salad sandwich was delicious. I got a pint of frozen chicken tortilla soup to go - made for a few delicious lunches throughout the week!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

I've been to, and liked, Craft in Dallas so I was pretty happy when Craft opened up in LA. I've actually gone there when they first opened but never took photos, so when we went there again it's my chance to blog!

We knew what we liked so we didn't get the tasting menu. Our meal started with a slightly spicy tartar amuse bouche.

I tried out their seared foie gras with mango and grapes.The foie itself could be better, but I did like how the tartness of the mango cuts the fattiness of the foie.

We also got the quail with blueberries, which I had in Dallas and really liked.I must say the one I had in Dallas was better, and I think it was due to the bird itself. These are a little on the small side (considering it's $16) and not as gamey and flavorful. I still like the preparation with the blueberries, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but having had a better version of it I was a bit disappointed.

For our main dish we got the Braised Beef short ribs with Root VegetablesThe short rib was tender and flavorful. I've had better short rib but this one is not bad at all. It's a nice, hearty 'comfort' dish.

And of course side dishes are important when you're ordering a la carte at Craft. Side portions are generous and they have a nice selection.In case you haven't noticed yet, I love sweet corn.The corn was sweet with a nice texture. They were also not too oily.

The other side dish we got was sweet potato, my companion's favorite.Pretty good and creamy. I'm not a huge sweet potato fan, so I can't say much, but I still enjoyed it.

Now, the thing that really made an impression on me at Craft Dallas was their gelato sampler! The one here is more expensive! 3 gelato/sorbet sampler for $10 or 6 for $20! In Dallas we got 6 just for $12 *grumble* Granted the scoops are pretty big, but still ..But we got the 6 anyway, which included chocolate, strawberry, concord grape, honey yogurt, and ... basil.The basil was one of my favorite! Unique, but very refreshing and delicious. Honey yogurt is another highlight.

Instead of petit fours, we were served coffee cake and torrones, both delicious. I usually do not like torrone because they stick to my teeth but I enjoyed these ones.

Overall I enjoyed my experiences at Craft LA and I'll come back again - but I know it could better. Because Craft Dallas is, and cheaper too.